rattlesnake with hands
by danniisupernova
Summary: Acting is only the easy part. AdamElle. Warning: implied underage sexual activity.


"So do you like him?"

Elle smiles at him flirtatiously. Adam has seen that smile a hundred times and knows that she picked it up from the one episode of Sex and the City she's ever seen. He knows that because he was there while she was watching it, out in the corridor while he was wheeled by on a gurney. She had been frowning studiously as if trying to make sense of how men and women worked in the outside world by studying some ancient sacred text on the subject.

"You mean Peter?" She lets the name roll out of her mouth, teasing him with it. She looks completely malevolent, like a wicked Tinker Bell. "He's i gorgeous /i isn't he?" She batts her eyelashes at him.

Seeing all of her contrived gestures pushes him back to that 14 year old girl, watching Samantha Jones sleep her way through Manhattan, a cocktail in her hand. Men were simply objects to her, a rather more safe approach then the one a teenaged girl might dream of.

"We kissed."

He doesn't move. He doesn't want to indicate anything. "Was it good?" Elle doesn't answer, she just grins that cat claw grin down at his tray of suppressants and anti-depressants. "Better then me in any case? I'm the only other one you've ever dug your claws into. A little girl playing with her little dolls-"

He practically flies back into the wall. He can feel his skin sizzle and his blood boil. She keeps pummeling him with current until he feels his organs cooking and part of his face sliding off. "Oh, I must have said something i really /i bad. You haven't fried me like that in months." He spits this at her venomously, dribbling blood down his chin.

"Did you miss it?"

It's supposed to come off as snide and sarcastic. Instead she sounds timid and almost despairing. There's a slight beg in her tone. It makes him think again of her sashaying Samantha Jones impression. Of how she had sauntered into his room one morning in a skirt and heels, her first pair.

-----------------------

_She had been so risqué, bending over to retrieve a dropped paper cup. He had sat on the edge of his cot simply watching, saying nothing. She's fifteen and eager. And probably ready to skin him alive if he did anything…dishonorable. He hadn't been expecting, well anything really._

_She had walked up to him, her chest at face level. She put her hands on his shoulders, slowly putting both knees on either side of his thighs. She took his hands and placed them on her lower back. "Elle," he said. "What are you doing?"_

_She didn't answer. She just kissed him on the lips, the sort of kiss a girl would give her father or a dog. He opened his mouth under hers; he thought she was just teasing. She took a sharp breath and she felt tense under his hands. _

_He slid his hand down her leg and then up again, under her skirt. He traced the elastic of her underwear with his thumb; slipping it lower, lower, sneaking his fingers under the light cotton. She let out a tiny gasp, almost imperceptible. When she did, he could feel her breath in his mouth._

_She was all electricity and gold and warmth. And then she was gone. "Wait-" _

_She didn't turn back. All she did was walk out the door, pulling her skirt down._

_------------------------_

"Do you remember your first kiss Elle?"

She's back the next day. She sets the tray down a bit roughly. She's angry. He can't resist teasing her some more, and he wonders how riled up she'll get. "That's a stupid question," she snaps.

"Who was it with?"

She's starting to get really angry now. "You." She hisses it, resentful. "Oh that's right!" he says, wickedly plumy. He knows that his accent grates on her when she's like this. Especially when he says her name.

"Remind me, _Elle_," he says, putting emphasis on the hot button, as he always does with her, "how old were you?"

She snatches the cup of pills to hand it to him. That's how he knows that he's still in the game

(_since when has it been a game for you?_)

with her: she hands him the cup instead of just leaving it for him on the tray. "Fifteen," she says irritably. He listens to the clacking of her heels on the linoleum, remembering, again, her first pair. When she steps closer to where he's sitting, he stands up.

She draws back, his face is right in hers. "Do you remember your first…date?" She doesn't look him in the face for a moment and then when she does, all of her flash and fire is back again. "I've never been on one."

"Yes you have. Me, you. This cozy little cell."

"A kiss does not make it a date."

--------------------------------

"_I know there's more." _

_He looked up at her, confused. She had walked in again, this time in a printed minidress and heels she was practically tripping over. She had handed him the paper cup and then pulled him in for a second kiss. When he had stopped her, she'd gotten a hurt look on her face and stumbled out. _

_Now she was back again, this time in jeans and little pink-checkered Vans. "I know that it isn't just kissing. I know that there's sex. And other things too." She crossed her arms across her chest. _

"_Other things?" he smiled, a bit sarcastically. She didn't get it. "Like what we did yesterday. When you…you know…" He'd never imagined her being this vulnerable or uncomfortable before. He'd been expecting the swinging, sexual Samantha Jones mask. Instead it was just Elle Bishop, a fifteen year old girl who had just had her first kiss with a man who was older then her father. About three centuries older to be exact. But it wasn't that, even still. _

_But she just stood there in the doorframe, like a question in a black hoodie. He walked toward her. He cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her, very briefly. She closed her eyes and Adam laughed to himself because he was sure it was just another tidbit gleaned from Sex and the City or some romantic movie. A little actress._

_His little actress. _

-----------------------

"And what would make it a date?"

Elle takes a step back. "Doing something new."

"So by that reasoning, we've been on two dates." She pushes him away.

"You know I can't-"

He stops her with a kiss. "I knew you'd be back."

"I can't. They won't let me see you again." She tries to pull away but he won't let her. He kisses her again. He knows that he can't force her. The truth is that she could kill him if she tried, if only for a few moments.

At this point he could smell his skin starting to cook while blue sparks rolled over him. "I don't understand why you care about that so much. Just another go-round with me and then you can get back to your darling new toy."

"I don't want something new," she whispered, kissing him again before she turns on her heel, slamming the door to his cell behind her.

---------------------

"_Is it stupid? That I said that I mean. Because, you know, I've never done this before?" _

_He hands her her shirt. "I don't think so."_

_She turns to face him, a rather desperate look on her face. "You really think so? You're not all jaded about sex? You don't think that it doesn't count?" She stood, barefoot, facing him, tears threatening. And suddenly he understood that faux playgirl persona. Looking at her in no shoes, in nothing but jeans and a tank top there were no masks, no hiding. She had never been closer to anyone then she had been to him. And she was afraid. _

"_I think that-"_

_Adam felt a sting in his neck. He felt the air around him rush into his lungs like it was water. He felt his cells trying to fight the poison that was slowly beating it's way from his jugular to his head, to his arms, to his heart. He saw Bob standing in the door frame, just where Elle had been earlier. He gave Adam a satisfied look. _

_He saw the look of shock on Elle's face. He knew right then, what he should have said instead of "I think". _

I know it counts_ he thought as loudly as possible. His mouth wouldn't move and the room was starting to waver and shimmer. And then everything faded to black. _


End file.
